


Monster

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU because let's be real this is my writing, Ableism, Absent John Winchester, Agoraphobia, Agoraphobic Sam, Alternate Universe - Not Hunters, And Fading Into Obscurity, Azazel (Supernatural)'s Special Children, BAMFs, Basically Two Neurodivergent People Making It Work, Because That Always Irritated Me, But they Finally Break Down, Bye Asshole, CPTSD, Canonical Character Death, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Cold Oak, Dean Ships It, Dean Winchester Has Anxiety, Developing Relationship, Did I Mention This is Amulet Fic, Exorcising Personal Demons, First Time, Good riddance, Hunters are Hunting Sam, I Actually Feel Better Now, I Followed Character Instructions But That's Not An Excuse, I Think I Fridged John Winchester, I'm Sorry, I'm Sorry Sam, Isolation, It Seems Like People Like It This Way, It's Really Amulet Fic, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Knives, Listen Sam Ships Everything, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Neglect, Neurodivergent Dean Winchester, Neurodivergent Sam Winchester, No Actual Demons Were Harmed in the Writing of This Fic, Overprotective Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Panic Attacks, Podfic Welcome, Protective Dean Winchester, Quiet, SO MANY ADDITIONAL TAGS, Sam Has Panic Attacks, Sam Ships It, Sam Winchester Does Not Go to Stanford, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Sam-Centric, Samulet, Selectively Mute Dean Winchester, Seriously the POV is important, Sleeping in the Impala, Slow Creeping Horror, Tags Are Fun, Tags Are Hard, The Amulet Doesn't Have the Canon Powers Okay I Hate Those, The Amulet Has Powers, They Are Super Insular, They Seriously Are More Fucked Up by the Neglect Than in Canon, This Turned Out Creepier Than I Thought It'd Be, Trauma, With Some Shippiness, i'm cool with it, internalized ableism, sam is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-18 02:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 10,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11864805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: "I had to be more than just a brother, I had to be a father and I had to be a mother to keep him safe. And that wasn't fair. And I couldn't do it. And you wanna know what that was like?"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a little bit experimental. I'm working heavily on my head-jumping in this fic, which is more of a problem in other fics, also other typical things I "get wrong" that would cause an original work to totally fail. So I hope that this fic causes a minimum of confusion, because it might actually read differently than my other stuff. TLDR I'm working on staying in Sam's head and that's a weird place for me to be. Also because...AU for real. Also I have no idea on length for this thing or a timeline on writing it. It could easily go for a long time, or not.
> 
> ETA: I had no idea some of what would happen with this thing, and now, after 9 years of writing Sam and Dean, apparently I'm finally tackling agoraphobia, which means my author's note could easily become its own mini-story. Sam and I are processing agoraphobia feels in this fic, and I still don't know how long it will be, and it's taken me this long to ever write about this, but rest assured I still write from experience. So....I actually didn't know we were going here but here we are, especially, I guess, in later chapters. This is now somewhat emotionally taxing and I'm not sure it will be going for as long as this Sam would like, but I will try. So please heed the tags, because I'm very serious about this since I deal with it every day. We're going there for real.
> 
> Also, in case it was ever wondered, the reason I alllllllmost always write selectively mute Dean is I've experienced that too! Because hey! Please note that for the sake of fiction and privacy stuff, I'm not writing that as exactly as I have experienced it.

“Thank you, Sam, I love it,” Dean says, and his voice is earnest.

He is staring at his brother a little bit, nods and doesn’t smile. 

He doesn’t smile.

He watches Dean closely, though, and when Dean puts the amulet around his neck he does so with a reverence that is unexpected, even though it matches the words Dean says.

Dean has been his protection for all of this time. He knows that. And now, when Dad’s friend Bobby says something is special, he knows that that special something should go to Dean.

There’s a part of him that has always known this.

Dad makes no secret of anything. Sure, that there are more monsters out there than he first knew about, but that’s not the same as how Dad deals with other things.

He knows his father hasn’t known what to do with him since he was small. He knows he leaves it to Dean for a reason.

Whatever the amulet is for, really and truly, he always knew it would be for Dean. Knew it in his gut.

Now Dean is wearing it and it glints a little bit against his brother’s shirt.

He crosses the room to Dean and wraps him in a hug, gets his arms around his brother’s neck. “I’m glad you like it,” he whispers.

“Of course I do, Squirt. I know it isn’t easy for you to get me presents.”

He keeps watching where the amulet rests against Dean’s neck and chest.

“I’ll wear it forever,” Dean says. “It’ll be my talisman.” Most of what he says, he says with his eyes, but he knows Dean is serious, he can see the fervent appreciation that is there. He sees the belief behind Dean’s eyes, the way the color shifts just slightly to say, _I mean this._

And for a moment he doesn’t feel like the monster his father has always said that he is. He’s given Dean protection against him now, or maybe he has and it’s enough; that’s what he’s hoped for. Dad doesn’t keep any _big_ secrets and he knows what he needs to know.

Dean keeps him safe. They aren’t going to throw him out on the street. They know he belongs in their family, and so far Dean hasn’t ever complained too loudly about taking care of him. But he knows and Dean is going to need everything he can use to stay safe.

He doesn’t tell Dean this. There’s no secret between them and Dean can guess, but he doesn’t say outright that this is what Dean will need the amulet for. Dean doesn’t like him being that frank about himself, that real.

Dean believes in him, even when Dad doesn’t, and he tries to remember that and he tries to be as strong as he can inside because Dean wants him to grow up that way. Not monster-strong, but inside strong, believe-in-himself strong and know that it’s okay. That his family will keep his secret and make sure everything is alright. That there are grey areas and that people like Dean never stop loving people like him. That they are family.

He hopes that Dean will take this to mean what he wants it to mean--that he’ll never let Dean go, that he wants to be beside Dean tonight when they sleep. “Thank you for wearing it.” is all he says. He won’t cry. He won’t smile and he won’t cry. He lets the words stand alone.

*~*~*

Dean seems to remember that night fondly. That’s a guess, because after that he can’t really remember a time Dean has been without the amulet. They are not going to talk about it. But he watches Dean, knowing that he’d see it quickly if Dean abandoned his present and he knows that Dean knows just as well.

They don’t talk, but a few times his gaze trails to the amulet and Dean makes a point of meeting his eyes.

Dean’s always been quiet like that. Everything is sort of quiet, just the two of them with rock music playing when they feel like it. And it’s fine.

After a while they don’t even need Dad to come home, and he comes home less even if they did need him. Dean always finds work. They both get tall enough to lie about their ages eventually. When there’s no work, there’s recycled cans and bottles and a time or two maybe just Dean working magic, but there’s at least always vending machine food and Dean’s gentle touch when there’s nothing like that around to soothe him.

*~*~*

The first time a hunter finds them and it becomes real, that he is what they are hunting, it’s a small man who tries to get in the motel room by saying he’s been hunting with their father. Dean does open the motel room door long enough to brandish a knife and show him that he can get dead if he comes near the Winchesters again.

Dean’s knife skills are good and it’s enough.

That night it’s Dean who climbs into bed with him and holds on so tight. “I’ve always got you, Sammy,” he says. “I’ve always got your back. We’re okay.”

*~*~*

“Don’t worry, Dean,” he is telling his brother soon after that. “I’m big now, I mean, actually just _big_ and I can--”

He stops himself, checks himself, tries not to break into a sweat. “I mean--”

They just look at each other for a while. The quiet is different now, though Dean is trying by force of will to make it less that way somehow, he can tell.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean finally says when the silence eases a little bit. “We’ll figure it out. Every time. We always do."

And that’s true. They do.

*~*~*

He watches the amulet as it glints in place against all Dean’s clothes.

_Safe. Safe. Safe. He’s going to be safe._

*~*~*

More hunters come. Dean is tall and muscled now, not as tall as he is, since he shot up like a beanpole even before his thirteenth birthday, but Dean’s got enough skills and he runs drills. He knows that Dean reminds himself it’s to protect them both. They’re in this together, according to Dean, and he believes his brother, he does.

He has to.

*~*~*

After the second time hunters come for them, Dad finally comes home. The look he has on his face could scald a person, and Dad aims it right at him. Then their father rushes him and Dean into the car and they drive for eons to another random room with brown almost freckle-y wallpaper and he says not to go anywhere.

Dean is pissed. He’s almost eighteen now and he yells, he actually yells at Dad that none of it is fair and that Dad doesn’t have to be anywhere near them when things happen.

Dean almost never yells. He is usually just so good and quiet and does what needs to be done regardless of anything.

There’s no reason to be scared of Dean, but Dad should know how rare this is and he kind of does. The two of them can tell he does. It won’t do anything, though. Dad asks Dean what he expects someone to do, tells him he’s out every day fending off things that could come and find them. There’s a place for them to stay and some loose cash, and that’s that.

Just like so many other times.

And then Dad’s gone again.

*~*~*

Dean gets so good with the knife. So good that he comes close to doing more than scaring a few people off.

Time to just breathe. That’s what Dean gets them, and they are safe.

*~*~*

Dean’s hands are always so careful and gentle with him. He doesn’t know if he really deserves it. He doesn’t know if Dean really wants to do any of this. He looks into Dean’s eyes and sees fear, but he knows it’s not fear of him. It’s of what they are both becoming--what they are having to become.

“Sammy, I--”

The nickname speaks of gentler times, or maybe times when they were just smaller.

“It’s okay, Dean. We do what we have to do.” The words feel empty and he isn’t sure if they’re going to help his brother at all, but the air feels less heavy with fear and misery and he will take it.

*~*~*

When he goes to school he has his own knife now, he has for a while and mostly what he has to do is remember not to use it. Taking a knife to a gunfight is serious. Taking a knife to any kind of fight is serious. 

So at school he practices not being a hunter, even though he has the knife.

He practices not being able to wield a knife or throw a punch.

But somehow everyone feels something from him. Something about the way he moves. or things he can’t hide.

Danger.

_Monster._

*~*~*

“Dean,” he says one morning when he is just edging into fourteen, “I don’t really want to go.”

“Huh, Sammy?”

“I don’t want to go to school.”

“But you’re great in school,” Dean says.

And he is surprised, he wasn’t expecting something like that. Something nice, even though it’s Dean. He wasn’t sure if his school stuff was something Dean was paying attention to, honestly. But of course it was. Of course it was.

“Yeah, I…” He considers what to tell Dean right then and ultimately there’s just nothing; he doesn’t know how to explain. Especially on the heels of a compliment--well, now he has to go. Anyway, it’s not like he’s scared, it’s just _so much work_.

He remembers when he was small, separation anxiety from Dean, though they didn’t call it that then, they didn’t name it at all. He remembers Dean dropping him off at Kindergarten alone, even though Dean was only tiny himself, and how Dean had lied and said, “My dad’s in the car,” and everyone had known it for the falsehood it was. If he had been older, he might have been embarrassed or scared, but all he knew was that he didn’t want to, couldn’t leave Dean.

He has it now too. He does. He has it now too.

It’s different, of course, but he and Dean always know where the other is in space and sometimes it’s just a lot when they have to let each other go.

Of course it would be that way.

He tries to remember it’s not his fault that it is.

His stomach flips, but--

“Hey, if you go, while you’re gone I’ll get us some good grub,” Dean says. “You want milkshakes tonight?”

He smiles a little, sad but resigned. “Yeah, Dean. Sure.” He goes to school, but not before he spends the morning closely watching Dean, memorizing the lines of what passes for home right now.

Maybe one day Dean will just understand this, like he does with so many other things, without him having to explain to his older brother. Somehow, that’s usually how it works and he’s okay with that.

That night they drink milkshakes and it is pretty extravagant for them. Dean is watching him. He is watching Dean. And there’s a question in the air but they can’t really grab hold of it, not yet.

Not the real one, anyway.

His gut clenches and unclenches but the shake is still good going down, cold and sweet and amazing and he knows it’s from Dean.

*~*~*

And then it is just life. The way they move through the world. Armed with knives, making money from every odd job they can. Though Dean tells him to stay inside a lot, especially when he has headaches.

A couple of times he breaks the TVs where they are, either a crack in the front or just breaking the signal and leaving nothing but static. They try not to let their Dad know about it, it’s just a thing he can do even if it’s completely an accident.

They know it’s from him. It has to be. There’s never any other explanation.

*~*~*

So they move from room to room and he is alone a lot of the time. That’s just how it is. It’s life.

*~*~*

He prefers being alone to going to school, these days anyway. Sure he’s great at it or whatever, but the civilians….

*~*~*

Then he remembers, most of what he has to fear is between his two ears. His eyes search for the amulet in the dark. He curls against Dean while his brother sleeps, even as big as they are, and he remembers that his brother isn’t afraid, not afraid to touch him or love him, maybe even though he should be.

*~*~*

So he isn’t thinking of his father, who never comes home, when the news comes.

The hunter named Bobby calls them. Out of the blue. He says that he’s got their Dad’s car, it’s been smashed. Their father didn’t make it.

He is eighteen, tall as a tree so he towers over Dean now, and when Dean hears the message--

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting from his older brother.

And for a long time Dean is silent. And he will not be the one who asks Dean to speak.

They watch each other and then--

Almost in the same instant they realize it.

They are not waiting anymore.

*~*~*

Dean doesn’t make him go to school for a while. They will travel to this man Bobby’s at some point, all threadbare clothes and shoes with holes and a genuine fear of hunters, of the men their father associated with.

Mostly they just curl in on each other and there is quiet, like so many other times but this time is….

It’s final.

*~*~*

Dean’s voice is thick and gravelly when he uses it again a few days later.

“Sam,” he says, not Sammy but Sam, “We’re free.”

Dean leans down a little and there the amulet is, glinting.

And they don’t cry. The silence of them not crying is thick with bewilderment but they don’t cry. Not for their father who was never really there to begin with, already a ghost.

*~*~*

“We’re free,” Dean says, and, subtly, the tension parts. When Dean inclines his head a little and closes his eyes… the only thing to do is watch the amulet and then-- and then--

He moves closer to Dean, waits for gentle hands to enfold him and they rock together a little in place.

“Free,” he agrees, and it ends whatever discussion is hanging in the air.

*~*~*

In the end they meet the man from the junkyard halfway between where they are and where he is in Sioux Falls. They pick up the car without much preamble. Dean is legal to drive now.

But in their outfits that look like they’re falling off or ripping apart, sewn together a dozen times in all the places it’s easiest to hide fresh stitches, they don’t really want to be around anyone with prying eyes, much less a place they can stay with a sheriff or a hunter who could see the headaches and turn on them at a moment’s notice.

There was no reason to trust their father and even less reason to trust a stranger.

They drive away and he rubs circles into the back of Dean’s hand to keep him calm for the first time he is behind the wheel of the Impala.

By the end of the drive their fingers are entwined.

What does it matter? They are free.

*~*~*

“I’m not going to leave you,” he tells Dean. “Not for school, not for anything.”

“School,” Dean says, tired but determined, “You were good in school.”

“We have to stick together, though,” he says. “You don’t have Dad, but you can have me.”

And he doesn’t cry, but there’s a sudden film of mist over his vision.

Because he knows he’s not enough. He could never be enough. And staying with Dean is really for his benefit, he knows. After all, he’s the one who puts Dean in danger in the first place.

But Dean just nods. Knows they’ll stay together. It’s always been the way of things with them. Where would either of them go?

*~*~*

They are alone somewhere among the hills, spread over the back seat of the car in exhaustion when--when--

When he isn’t with Dean anymore.

The headache he has feels like enough to split his head. A bell tolls in a tower and rips him right away from his safe moorings, where he’s been his whole life, curled up in Dean’s gentle arms.

And he knows it all in one second--this is danger--this is the thing that Dean cannot save him from.

There is a group standing around him in a circle, sneering.

“Fresh meat!” one of them screams, and then there’s the swing of a weapon and--and darkness.

Dean will come, but he will find himself too late.

He was always meant to die here.

*~*~*

What he isn’t expecting is this:

Quite simply, Dean.

Always, Dean.

The amulet glows against Dean’s chest as bright as the sun. He is there in the next instant, the two of them floating gently in limbo.

He does not feel free now but he knows where he is--he’s with Dean, who has always been the light in his life.

The light of the amulet encircles them. They watch as the crowd at the base of the tower disperses, all of them looking down at the--his--body--and Dean, he expects to see Dean’s too, but it isn’t there.

Dean is only in the ether but it’s enough.

“Come back to me, Sammy,” Dean is saying, pushing the words into his mind, “What they did is-- it’s-- barbaric. But you can come back.”

He feels the pulse of the thoughts of those in the crowd.

Headaches. They all have headaches. They break things. They can move things like he can.

Just like he can.

The thing that makes him a--

“You’re not a monster, Sam,” Dean is growling, forceful. “You can fight this. You can come back to me. To me. Come back to me. Sam, you are mine. Sam, you are _mine_. Come home.”

He reaches out and Dean takes his hand. Something knits him back together, the cleave of his spine fading into a memory and then--

And then he’s home.

This time when he’s back in Dean’s arms, Dean is shaking like a leaf.

So it was real.

“Jesus, oh Jesus,” Dean is saying. “Like walking over your grave. Oh, Sam. Oh, Jesus, Sammy.”

He doesn’t feel that much. Not even a sense of revenge. What possible good could that do in a sea of monsters?

But Dean… Dean….

“Let me… You were there. Let me help it stop hurting, Dean.”

“I can’t-- Sam--,” Dean says, “This, this is hell. Stay with me, Sam.”

“Let me help,” he says, imploring.

And he kisses Dean’s cheeks. “I’m right here, I’m home,” and his hands are everywhere and so are Dean’s, proving to each other that they are both real and solid.

Dean’s hands are shaking, he’s shaking all over from head to toe almost like he has a fever and can’t get warm enough.

He holds onto Dean until the shaking stops. He holds on for hours.

The amulet is warm, warm enough to bring heat to Dean’s clothes all around where it rests.

Keeping them safe. Keeping them free.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning they wake up feeling like they’ve been hit by a truck.

He knows it’s not just him because Dean is whimpering in his sleep.

Whatever happened took a lot out of Dean and-- well--

The surge of panic and remorse is enough to knock him flat but he doesn’t fall. He just wakes Dean as gently as he can and his brother grabs for him, flailing and _please_ and a few tears.

There’s almost no reason to cry--sure they’ve boomeranged around the country a few times overnight but they’re together.

And isn’t that always the way it’s been?

Rhetorical questions for 500, Alex.

He wipes away all the visible signs of strife and they pull over to a real place to stay. He makes sure Dean downs several things from the med kit including a Benedryl and he becomes the big spoon while Dean sleeps fitfully.

Maybe it will be like this forever, and if it is should he want it to be?

As he cradles Dean in his fitful sleep he thinks over what exactly happened to them in the last twenty four hours. And then when it makes his brain seem to bend in the wrong way he tries to stop.

He and Dean hide out for three days, just the familiarity of four close walls around them. Once he's really awake, Dean is mostly silent again and he guesses, well, that he’s going to take what he can get. He gets cheap soup when he can and they subsist on it until things are calmer and they can move on.

Now more than ever he knows he never wants to let Dean go again.

*~*~*

“I’m right here,” he tells Dean, soft and earnest the next time Dean wakes up and Dean nods, still quiet. 

It’s about all he can expect.

“When do you want to move on?” he asks.

Dean points to his throat and shrugs.

So they will wait. It seems Dean has something to say, when he can.

*~*~*

“Don’t you ever--don’t you ever--don’t you ever,” Dean repeats over and over. 

“I know I scared you,” he whispers. “You went quiet again.” And this time he is really fighting back tears and they threaten to spill. “Dean, do I always scare you?”

“No, Sam. And don’t you start on that crap like he used to say to you. I’m here. I’m here.”

“I’m here too. I’m here too, Dean.” He shakes himself out of it. “It’s just, it’s good to hear your voice.”

“We can do this.”

He reaches up and gently traces the curve of Dean’s jaw. Dean starts shaking again and they press themselves together.

“Sam…” Dean murmurs and then it turns into a moan. “Sam.”

“I’m here.”

“Almost lost you.” It’s a growl now and Dean turns toward him, pulls him as close as he can.

“But you didn’t. You had me the whole time. We were safe. We were free.”

“Please,” Dean whispers.

And he knows that whatever his brother asks for he will give him. There’s not even a question.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Dean is shaken and a little bit distant. Still, he keeps his eyes on Dean and Dean responds in kind. This time, instead of the question hanging in the air, Dean finally asks him something like what he’s been waiting for.

“Am I the monster now, Sam?” he asks.

He reaches for Dean, shaking his head.

Dean moves back a little bit, though, and they don’t connect. Not right away. And he understands, though it hurts a little, low in his gut.

“Dean, no. You were never the monster. How could you think--” he starts to ask, even with what he understands. That others would never understand this, or them, or what they might do. “No,” he says quieter. “You’re not. No.”

Dean seems to breathe a little easier with those words out in the open. And they keep their eyes on each other.

Then: “Dean, please. Don’t be afraid of this, of us.”

Dean smiles a little then, like the sun peeking out slightly from behind a cloud. “Yeah, Sammy. I won’t. Sam, I’ve never been afraid of you. You don’t have to ever worry about that.”

Dean’s said that before, more or less, over the years, and they both know it only helps a little, but it does help.

“We’ll get through this together,” he says to Dean. “We always do. But we can’t if we don’t stick together. They’ll keep hunting me, Dean. You know that. So if we need… Please.” He reaches for Dean again. “It’s okay. It’s all okay.” 

Dean leans in just slightly again and he kisses Dean, he is allowed to kiss Dean and it is perfect.

“Don’t let them--” he continues, “Don’t think about them, what other people think,” he says, “This is just us. It’s always been us. It’ll always be us.”

“It’ll always be us,” Dean agrees. “You wanna get in the car?”

“Do we have to move?”

“Not for a while,” Dean says.

“Hold on to me,” he says.

“I will.”

*~*~*

They stay for another few hours like that, just drinking each other in and letting their breathing even out. They move on at checkout time and hold hands in the car all the way to Indiana. They travel back roads and meander slow along them through the country, and whatever people think they see, he and Dean are gone just as quickly as they first appeared, staying nowhere long anymore. Not for now. For now it is just the two of them and the road.


	4. Chapter 4

He realizes at some point, now that he and Dean are alone and they have the car, these are some of the only times he can remember of being in the Impala for longer than to be ferried between motel rooms. 

Hidden.

A shiver runs down his spine and he puts his hand out to touch Dean’s arm.

They don’t say anything, but just from the touch Dean knows something is going through his mind, something dark.

He wonders when or if they’ll have the strength to talk about this too.

This too.

*~*~*

That night they don’t stop at a motel room, they curl up back in the back seat of the car with Dean curled protectively around all of him that he can reach.

They are still okay. They are.

Gas money and a few bucks left over for mini donuts or a Honey Bun is all they need.

Well, and each other, and the road, but those are always there now.

*~*~*

Then:

“Dean, is it weird? You know, Dad’s car?”

“A little weird, Sammy, sometimes. But it’s not her fault, you know?”

“Is...is...she…? Um, is she like home to you?”

“Not the way you are,” Dean says, quick and earnest. “But she tries. And we probably shouldn’t give up on her. I mean, she was Dad’s, but she’s ours now.”

“She’s yours,” he says, shifting a little and hoping Dean can’t tell how weird he feels about this. “But that’s okay,” he adds for good measure.

“Sam, I know,” Dean says. “I know. But yeah. Let me be the older one right now. I’ll take care of her so we always have a home. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You like the open road better than a room?”

“I do.”

“Me too. So…”

“So yeah. Forget I said anything, Dean.”

Dean laughs a little. “You know I’d never do that, Squirt,” he says, joking of course by now but his eyes are dancing and shining a little. “But try not to worry. The Impala, this car, she’s got our backs enough. Both our backs.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

“You know I’ve got both of ours and she’s got mine,” Dean says. “I feel it all the time.”

He smiles a little. “She’s your car all right.”

“She is now, I guess. Shit’s weird, Sam, I know. But we’ll be okay.”

“I know I will while I’m with you.”

“And I know the same. Listen, try to get some sleep, Sam, wouldya?”

And he smiles, a real, genuine smile. Dean is so good to him. He feels so protected with his brother here. Just as it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Sam, y'all. I feel bad about this, but...well.


	5. Chapter 5

They are stopped somewhere with four walls. He didn’t ask, didn’t beg, even when he really, really, really wanted to all of a sudden, with adrenaline and anxiety spiking through him. He knows that Dean saw something on his face earlier that day and knew where they needed to be.

And now… now… or eventually, he’ll have to say something.

It could be worse. He could have totally lost his shit. He didn’t. So...now he might have energy for the talk they need to have.

 

“Actually, Dean...can we just, uh…” He thinks about just point blank telling Dean he’s scared of the car.

He won’t say that, will he?

“The Impala, it’s, um, you know, you know how it’s sort of Dad’s car? I mean… you know?”

And Dean does. Of course he does. It’s plain in his eyes.

“It’s just, he hated me, Dean,” he continues. “And he just...well…”

“Yeah, Sam. Well…” Dean pauses, “I mean, I get it. I do.”

“I can’t let some of that stuff go, Dean. I mean, if I was...stronger, different, maybe I would have run away.”

“No need for that, Sam. We’re okay.”

 _Yeah. I’m sure this is fine for you._ He doesn’t say that part out loud, he stops himself. But this he does say, with shame coursing through him. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Sssh. It’s okay. No need. It’s okay.”

“Dean.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s just, everyone’s always trying to kill me, Dean, and that’s not even hyperbole.”

“Not even what?”

“Hyperbole. It’s not even...just, it’s real.”

“I know it is, Sam.”

“I’m sorry, you know, I never turned into this great hunter, we don’t go on adventures….”

“I dunno, Sam. I think our life is still…”

“It’s enough,” he says thoughtfully. “I mean, it is?”

“Plenty exciting enough for me. Listen, I won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go, Sammy.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Sam. Seriously, dude, have I ever not meant it?”

“You always mean what you say.” He meets Dean’s eyes and he can feel that his brother will probably see they’re a little wet. “Dean.”

“You can ask me anything. You can always ask me. I’ll always tell you the truth, Sam. We’ve had enough total bullshit for one life. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“I’m here.”

“Okay. Okay, Dean. Thank you.”

“You got it, Sammy. It’s okay.”

“It is.” And he tries not to think, _for now._

*~*~*

So, okay. He’s told Dean a little bit of what the problem is. What he isn’t expecting is that actually makes it get worse.

He casts his thoughts back over his memories. Not wanting to go to school--like, _really, really_ not wanting to go to school. The more he thinks about that, the worse it feels. As if he’s reliving it, only with his current level of whatever the hell this is intact.

He’s smart and he’d research it at a library or whatever but that would mean… being at the library.

Jesus, he’s falling apart.

*~*~*

So in the end, weird as it seems at first, he realizes Dean has researched this.

They both know it’s not a curse. They’re both pretty sure the amulet won’t magic him out of it, whether or not the thing’s been a literal lifesaver before, and no, they’re still not talking about that.

It’s just… it’s a thing. A thing that happens to normal people. People like him and Dean, people who’ve been through hell.

Agoraphobia.

So it has a name.

And that makes it worse too.

*~*~*

There are zero, absolutely zero, mental health professionals who are in the world, even walking among the monsters, walking among people who can do a mind whammy, who are prepared to treat Sam Winchester for agoraphobia.

It’s not going to happen.

And that makes him realize how little he’s been in the world. Among the civvies and the normies. He realizes it. Again. Definitely not for the first time, but maybe this time hurts the worst.

He looks for Dean, finds him, lets him see everything on his face.

“Sam, sometimes the monsters aren’t the people with extra-sensory whatever,” Dean says. “Sometimes the monsters are moms and dads.”

“Sometimes the monsters are _definitely_ dads,” he agrees. “People. Sometimes the worst monsters are people.”

“Yeah, Sam.”

“And hunters. Sometimes the monsters are hunters.”

“If they try to take you from me, Sam, Sammy, I will hunt them back until every last one of them is dead.”

He knows Dean means it, too.

He’d find a way.

Hell, probably one of them is stashed in the amulet, somehow. Who knows what that thing can do? It’s already all but stopped death.

That doesn’t stop him from being scared out of his mind, though. How many times can a person die, anyway, without totally losing it?

He is not hoping to find out. But maybe he will anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This won't take over the whole bunny, I promise. :)

They stay in a room for a couple days and he feels, well, comfortable but not really, he knows now this is a problem. And Dean is throwing himself into that problem--research, bringing him food, cuddling him until it slides into kisses, but ultimately he knows Dean is waiting for him.

Dean will wait for him.

It’s easy for Dean, it seems like. Especially if it means not talking about the kinds of things Dean is avoiding talking about. That they both are.

Because his little brother died and came back and-- Died. And came back.

Doesn’t matter now, though, not right now. Right now they’re in the thick of navigating agoraphobia. Together.

“If we need to take time,” Dean says, “We do. Listen, I could find someone who’s scared of whatever’s in their house, we could offer to stay there to deal with it. A home base? I don’t know. Sam, you’re the one dealing with this actual phobia, so you tell me what you think you need. We’ll do it. I’ll bend heaven and earth--”

“I know you will.”

“You want to move on a ways? Breathe a little and let me know.”

But now he knows what this is and so does Dean and it’s worse and so he doesn’t want to. He breathes anyway and realizes--

“It’s just out to the car, and you can stay there too, you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to.”

His eyes shine, though. In a way that means-- _please, not yet_.

Dean nods. It seems clear he expected this. He understands this--he’s seen it before.

_Do we have to move? Hold on to me._

*~*~*

 

“This is messed up, Dean,” he says a few hours later when his stomach has settled again. “It’s like…”

“Yeah, Sam, but we tackle the thing one piece at a time. Make sure you’re getting food, and...uh…”

“And uh.” he smiles. “Yeah.” Then, softer, “Dean, you’ve always given me everything I’ve needed. You’ve...you’ve… Just…”

“I try my best, Sam, what can I say, I’ve had a li’l bit of magic on my side, right?”

He smiles. “Yeah, Dean.” The smile is a little sad. “I gave you the amulet because-- because-- I thought--”

“I know, Sammy.” The words are so soft and gentle. “I’ve known for a while. I probably knew then, I don’t know.”

“I love you, Dean,” he says simply, “I’m such a mess.”

“Okay, Sam. Okay. Breathe. And listen to me a sec.” A pause. “You breathin’?”

“Yeah.”

“This is our fault, me and Dad. I went along with it.”

“Dean, you were a kid.”

“But I still did.”

“This started when you were _four_.”

Dean blinks. “Yeah, I….”

A soft sigh. “Don’t...lose yourself now, Dean, hold on, you’re strong, stronger’n me.”

“False. You took so much of the abuse, Sam.”

“Older kids see more.”

“He never thought I was a--”

There’s the silence again. 

“--And you’re not," Dean pushes through it. "You never have been, oh Jesus, Sam.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re scared of--of--”

“Myself. Scared of myself. Scared of everything.”

Dean sighs. Then admits it. “I am too.”

“Different brain weasels for different folks,” he says to Dean. "Listen, if you feel like you’re about to go quiet again...I can...I can...I’ll help. If it’s what you need….”

Dean smiles a little impishly and shrugs, pulls out a piece of paper and writes, “Order us a pizza?”

It’s not a half bad idea.


	7. Chapter 7

Eventually they have to get in the car and go. Dean is quiet, but it’s okay. They’re both used to that coming and going whenever the stress gets heavy or conversation goes in the wrong direction, and they try to avoid it but if it happens it happens. It’s life.

They both kinda like the quiet times by now, he thinks.

 _I am too_ , Dean said, and he’ll always remember. He tries to support Dean at least as much as Dean supports him, but sometimes he isn’t sure how. Should they talk about it? For all they do talk, there’s a lot of strategic not-talking. Sometimes for years. 

Sometimes their mom is invisible. Off the table. Can’t even think about it. So it was just Dad and well, that didn’t exactly go well.

Other than when they’re in the car, he isn’t even really thinking about Dad either, and then it all comes in a rush. All of it at once.

He lets Dean pick the music, drive the car, and usually he doesn’t want to be around the crowds in a diner, either. Dean brings him stuff he’d like.

He wishes it wasn’t getting worse, but then...there’s the big thing they don’t talk about and he’s not sure how to just get over it. 

How do you get over dying?

Being killed?

Knowing it was always your fate?

How do you get over being what other people fear? Being the monster in their dreams?

How does he get over...just...being…Sam?

*~*~*

“Hey Dean?”

“Yeah, Sam?” They are eating burgers in the car.

“The amulet, I mean…”

Dean smiles. “My magic. Our magic.”

“Yeah, Dean. Yeah. It is. Um…” There’s a long pause. They eat in silence for a while. “You have any ideas...what it...I mean…? Does?”

“Not really, Sam, but it’s ours and I guess we’ll figure it out one day. When we need to.”

“I kinda hope we don’t need to. Not again.”

Dean tenses a little. “Me too. Me too.” Then his older brother forces himself to relax, studying his face. “Hey. You have ketchup right there,” he says.

He smiles a little and shrugs, self-conscious but also… And he swipes at the mess and Dean nods in appreciation.

“We’re good, Sam,” Dean says gently. 

It would be great if he felt as confident as Dean sounds. Even for a second.

“Just for right now. We’re good. Right? Huh?”

“Yeah, Dean.”

“You scared?”

“Always am these days, Dean.”

“Okay. I gotcha. I gotcha, Sam. Always remember that. And I got this thing,” Dean pulls the amulet a little bit away from his shirt, “And you know who got it to me? It was you. I didn’t forget, Sam. We have our magic.”

 _We have our magic_ , he thinks.

And yeah. They do.

*~*~*

He doesn’t have his first actual anxiety attack about the basic business of going from place to place for a while after that. Not one he can point to and say, “That thing there was a distinct form of hell," anyway.

The anxiety he’s felt has been sort of free-floating up until then. Not wanting to do things. Not wanting to risk ( _his life_ ) things. Thinking it over, how hunters tend to show up when they can track the Winchesters too easily. How many the two of them have had to propel away, make fear for their own lives before they would stop.

He thinks about the day he boomeranged in and out of a town with a tower, surrounded by ( _monsters_ ) people like him, people who wanted him dead too, even if just for sport or maybe competition.

They don’t talk about it and ultimately what would talking do? He already fears for his life every day.

And he shouldn’t. Not this kind of fear, anyway. He should be--tougher than this at any rate.

He tries to breathe. They are crossing from the car into a room and he feels like everything is pressing in on him. Nothing looks right, like the air itself is warped. He knows there’s nothing supernatural about it. By now he’s read about it.

This is his first panic attack.

And okay. Okay. They have magic. But--well--he’s pretty sure--magic doesn’t fix adrenaline spikes.

And he just feels like he’s going to die out here. No big deal.

He grabs for Dean’s hand. “I need to get inside.”

“I know, dude.”

“I can’t really move. Really freaking out, here, Dean...”

“I see that.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“No need for that, Sam, come on, get in the room, I’ll help you.”

And he does. He just does. Like it’s just another part of what he does every day. And...yeah. So this is life now, too.

The panic attack doesn’t subside right away but Dean’s there like always.

Just as it always is.

*~*~*

An hour or so later he’s breathing like a normal human who isn’t convinced death is imminent. Even though he is a monster. Even though-- everyone but Dean and maybe that guy Bobby wants him dead and in hell.

And this is fine. This is fine.

Maybe they want him dead but that doesn’t actually mean he has to die.

Maybe they want him dead because--well, they’re just wrong. Fighting something they don’t understand.

_Sometimes the worst monsters are people._


	8. Chapter 8

He wakes up stressed with every muscle tight as a bow string. He hopes he hasn’t had an attack in his damn sleep. It would be just his luck, but he hopes it isn’t that.

Then he hears Dean.

“Sammy, please. Please. Please no, don’t go. You can’t leave me now.”

He blinks. He never had intentions of leaving Dean, not for a second. They reassure each other so much of this, but it’s still haunting Dean’s dreams.

“Dean,” he murmurs, trying to shake his brother awake. “Dean, wake up. I’ve got you.” Dean lets out an anguished sound that rips into him, makes his heart pound. _No. No. No._ “Come on, Dean, no. I’m right here.” 

He can feel Dean trying to pull out of the nightmare.

“Come on, Dean, come on out, wake up.”

Dean is shaking and his hands go to the amulet as he wakes. “Sam, _please_. Don’t ever leave me. I can’t. I’ll do anything you need, I… I’ll get it done, I promise, I’ll--” He pauses for air, takes in a huge breath and just whispers, “Please. I need you.”

“I know you do, Dean,” he murmurs back. “I need you too. Hey. Is that...are you having anxiety?”

“I don’t know, Sam, I just need you to promise me. You won’t leave. You can’t leave me.”

“I won’t. I never want to, Dean.”

He wonders if now will be the moment when they talk about it, with Dean still shaking hard and then he feels a sardonic little smile forming on his lips--Dean’s more likely to just go quiet instead, he remembers, he knows.

But neither of those things happen.

“Please, I just need…” 

Dean reaches for his arms, guides his hands a little until they rest along Dean’s ribs and then… Dean takes a deep breath. He feels Dean relax under his touch. And suddenly he realizes they’re both breathing easier.

“More?” he asks gently.

“When...when I’m calmer, oh, please, Sam, but this is good for right now, this is good for now.”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he says, keeping his hands right where Dean asks. “I’m sorry it’s like this.”

“Only sometimes, Sammy, right? We have good times. We do.”

And they do, but… He sighs. Blows out a breath. “Yeah, Dean. We do.”

“This would be hell without you,” Dean says. 

And that’s just it. They both know that’s it, for both of them. Their usual comfortable silence falls and gently they both let it fill the space. Because that’s just it, exactly what needed to be said.

*~*~*

When Dean is in one of his silent times, they have to improvise a little. But it doesn’t stop them. Maybe he ends up waiting a little more often for Dean to initiate what he wants. Even when what he wants, is, well, his brother.

Especially when what he wants is his brother.

He can fill the motel room with enough noise for both of them when he needs to. When Dean wants him to.

He doesn’t exactly prefer the silent times but it helps in those moments that he knows for certain that Dean really wants this and all he has to do is be willing to give it.

The night he discovers that he can’t ignore Dean’s anxiety anymore, Dean’s gone quiet again and he pulls them together, all of the need and want clear on his face.

He knows to let Dean direct. He knows this time is for Dean. 

He wants Dean to know how sorry he is for all of these things, but now isn’t the time, not when Dean is taking something he wants and needs.

Even if it is from a monster. ( _he can’t let this go he’ll never let this go_ )

But this is not his older brother’s first rodeo. Dean catches it in his eyes right away when his thoughts veer that way. His older brother shakes his head, vehement. No. He wraps his arms tighter around Sam, tilts his head up and pointedly kisses him.

He points to Sam’s eyes and then his own lips. Then he mouths: _Read my lips. You are perfect._

“Dean. You are too. You are too.”

_No. Listen. You are. And not a monster. Not a monster. Come here._

It’s one of the deepest conversations they’ve had when Dean can’t use his voice. But Dean is having it. Right here and right now.

_When have I not meant what I said?_

Tears finally from his eyes as he looks at Dean. “You always mean what you say.”

_I love you, Sam._

“I love you, too.”

_You’re my brother._

He can’t stop the tears. “Dean, I can’t read...read you right now, anymore.”

So Dean reaches for him and pulls him close again. Deliberate and certain. He knows Dean won’t let go for a long time.


	9. Chapter 9

He wakes one morning with the flu. He knows it almost right away. The ache all over for no reason, the sloshy feeling in his gut. Dean is there for that too, and the two of them are even a little happy. Some things are mundane and can be handled with the wonders of rest and actual human medicine. It’s not quite a vacation, but they both get a short rest from fearing for his life.

They will both take this.

He will especially take the fever dreams of the two of them tumbled together in a psychedelic, hedonistic pile of limbs and over-sensitive skin.

Yeah. Those too. There’s misery in between them but it’s a small price to pay.

*~*~*

“We’re a mess,” Dean says one day, almost like he’s talking to the open air instead of his brother.

“We’re a mess but we’re free.”

They look at each other for a bit.

Are they?

“It could be worse. We could be hunters,” he says. And together they burst into hysterical laughter just this edge of panicked. He can practically feel Dean’s anxiety spike from across the room. ( _he’s pretty familiar with that sensation by now oh jesus_ )

“Sometimes the worst monsters are people,” Dean says. His hands go reflexively to the amulet and they both smile when they realize what he’s doing.

It doesn’t mean they have a reason to test it again, right? They just...both...appreciate it.

*~*~*

“I’m glad you feel safe. With me.” he says to Dean.

“Sam. For the last--no, the millionth time--you are not a monster. Of course I feel safe with you.”

“I’m your brother.”

“Yeah. Of course you are.”

“Can you--um--Dean?”

“You’re my brother,” Dean says. Of course Dean knows what to do. Of course he does.

Dean always means what he says.

Maybe one day before he can’t take this anymore it’ll all sink in.

That Dean really loves him.

*~*~*

When all they can do is touch and be as close as they possibly can, it helps and he thinks oh, this is, this is the thing he needed, touch and kisses and just to be known. Not as a monster but as a person with a body and an autonomy that’s respected, even when their times between four walls are getting to be longer and longer.

Wherever they are, while they keep moving when they need to, are the four walls that contain the long hours of their love, the quiet times and the loud, the four walls that say, _home base_ and _us against the world_ and _this is our space_ and _you know he loves you_ and _you love him with everything you’ve got. With everything._ and how 

_I need you_ , they say to each other with lips and teeth and tongue and oh

_I need you._


	10. Chapter 10

He wonders a bit about whether Dean’s anxiety will get worse and turn into what he has now.

Then he forces himself not to worry about it, as best he can.

They’ll get through. They always do.

But he watches Dean a little closer, he cooks more meals on the hot plate, he tumbles into Dean’s bed and murmurs an I love you whenever he can.

*~*~*

“Sam, do you want a place? Like a central place? Like we talked about that one time?”

He looks around, nervous, wants to remind Dean that for now this is that place. Then: “Central location means they can find us.”

Dean bites his lip. “Yeah. I just. Yeah.”

“The Impala is home, right? The real one?” He bites back the _For you._

“Not as much as you are. You know I told you that, Sammy. It’s still true.”

“No central place. I’m agoraphobic, not playing house.”

Dean laughs. “Spoken like a true Winchester.”

“Love you, Dean.”

“Come for a cuddle, huh?” Dean asks directly. And it probably means he’s anxious, but it’s all right. They’ll get through it together.

*~*~*

They are still lying in Dean’s bed as the sun rises the next morning and both are awake before they want to be. After all of the shaking and frustration and a few tears that come with a bad night of anxiety. If they were hunting, he would be on the coffee run while Dean blundered around.

But they--don’t. Can’t. Don’t. Don’t trust that community, not now or maybe ever.

He tries to banish the thought of them and Dean can feel him tense next to him.

“Sam.”

“Mm?”

“Home is where you are,” Dean whispers and then blows in his ear. “I wouldn’t have any of it without you. My sweet boy.”

He is all shivers and his hips snap upward.

“You believe me?” Dean asks.

Dean is so close to him. “Yes.”

Then everything is all teeth and moans but when he can get a breath between kisses and licks he says, “Dean…”

Dean makes a sound low in his throat and presses closer.

“Dean, it’s the same-- for me. It’s the--” ( _oh god_ )

Closer. Closer.

Dean moans and then: “I know. I know, Sam, I know. I know. I know.”

Dean is repeating it in rhythm with their movements. A staccato of commitment. “I promise. I know. I do. I swear.” And then: “I’m yours.”

He is feeling brave then, looking into his older brother’s eyes. “Come now,” he says, almost a moan but definitely a request, if not an order, and Dean does.


	11. Chapter 11

He wakes up sometimes with adrenaline so intense that one day he actually decides--

\--he is the danger and he needs to protect Dean right now by--

\--by running. By running.

And he does.

And he doesn’t get far, basically a little bit out of sight of the Impala in the parking lot and then he stands there, frozen, about to lose it.

Dean comes out shortly after, must have felt the air change inside and he just _screams_.

“SAM?!”

But then they find each other and okay, there won’t be any excursions, no matter how much the anxiety tells him he is the worst thing that ever happened to anyone.

It’s not that Dean begrudges him going anywhere, it’s just he hasn’t tried it in a long time and now--and now they both know what a disaster it could be. Could be. Potentially. And then was.

He needs Dean so badly he can taste it, sweat and their mingled fear and half-love half-revulsion and how much, how much, they know they’ve spiraled really far now, they’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

He shakes for hours and says, “I guess I can’t--I guess I can’t--”

“You will. Just not today. Just not right this second. We’ll get you there, Sammy. Together.”

*~*~*

So it’s when Sam is shaken and miserable in the motel room somewhere in Wyoming that the hunters come again. It’s almost like Sam puts out some kind of signal. Am I a failure? Come and judge me. 

And Dean is there, it’s been a while since he’s had to fight one of them off but he will. He will.

He knows Dean will.

But he doesn’t even care sometimes if he survives all this. So he slips up. And there’s a knife. A big knife.

It goes where it knows it’s supposed to, right in Sam’s back where his old injury was, like it was meant to be reopened. Even before he loses consciousness--

\--he can see the glow of the amulet.

\--It takes both of them--

\--and the glow is amazing. It’s healing, it’s--

The hunter named Harold stares angrily down at the body that housed him, and also--

\--and also Dean’s. But Dean is here.

So this is worse. This is worse and somehow he’ll manage to, he has managed to consciously escape the experience of death because-- because--

Because of the loneliest Christmas in his life.

So he’s here and Dean’s here, the light is blinding and yet somehow seems to smile at them, to know them.

Nevermind the trauma of surviving death, as apparently he’s going to do again. And Dean is here. So he’s given this curse to his brother too. He gave it to him for Christmas.

“Sammy, stop. Sammy, come on. We’re...just stop. You didn’t give me a curse,” Dean says. “We’re okay.”

A hunter has just killed them--both of them--but yes, they are, they will be…

The light of the amulet gets brighter, brighter. They are inside of it and it is--it is enfolding everything.

“Sammy, I’m right here.”

It’s like the last time, the way Dean just-- just knew-- just knew. Everything.

But they’re both dead and--

“We’re safe. We’re free,” Dean is there, talking to him, calm as anything and--and---

The knife wounds knit back together.

It will always be like this, he realizes now, the same way he understood who it was who killed him in the town with the tower. They cannot be separated, even by death, it was never meant to be otherwise.

Dean takes his hand and they land. Back on the ground, back in their bodies, back on earth.

Dean hooks a hand around the hunter Harold’s ankle and quite simply breaks his leg. Amid the howls of pain he has something to say: “Bet you weren’t expecting that from a dead guy, you piece of shit,” he growls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow so like I thought this fic was...not exactly going to be innocent, but, you know, just a Samulet thing, and now it's like, well, I apologize, I can see where my brain is going with this now but I swear I am just following some logical progressions from where I started, it's just that, well, they're...interesting. lol. Also, this is a really meandering piece of fiction and...well...yeah.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter.

The truth is that they both feel like they’ve been hit by a truck but there’s nothing to do but dispose of Harold. They go ahead and are generous with him--they give him a hunter’s burial although they don’t sing his praises or mourn his loss. Before the death, he estimates that he and Dean, well, they pretty much broke as many of Harold’s bones as possible, just for good measure, and well, because they were angry.

Dean does most of it as just a matter of course.

After Harold is a thing of the past, that’s when they rest, and so they don’t talk about it right away.

Whether Dean has any feelings like his about coming back from the dead, being outside of time.

When he got Dean the amulet, this wasn’t exactly what he imagined.

Eventually Dean opines over hashbrowns, “We’re unstoppable, Sammy. So what are we afraid of?”

“Tuck Everlasting?”

“Huh?”

“It’s just, when did I get myself into a book like Tuck Everlasting, Dean?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. A+, I’m not following.”

“It’s a...okay. Nevermind, Dean. It’s just, this might not be good.”

“Of course it’s good. It’s fine. This is fine.”

Sam laughs a little. “Yeah. This is fine.”

“Okay, it’s weird. But we’ll work with it, too, right? Kill a lot of abusive parents doin’ it, too.”

“Dean, I don’t think I realized you’re bloodthirsty as hell until now.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I wasn’t. Until now.”

“I remember that feeling from Cold Oak.”

“It changes you,” Dean admits. “It changes you, no matter how short it is, I guess.”

“Who’s the monster now?” he asks Dean. It’s a little rhetorical but….”

“Would you stop? They are.”

“Yeah.”

“The way they “raise” their kids? We need to do a little research project, Sammy.”

Sam laughs a little. “Okay, Dean.”

“I’ll go to the library.”

“It’s clear you will. I’ll cover Google.”

So now Dean was on a mission.

Find them before they find him and his brother.

It turns out, though, that Dean is not actually a serial killer, not like that anyway. It doesn’t really work. He comes back from the library a ball of nerves. “I can’t just kill them,” he says. “Even if they deserve it. I can’t just go after them like they’re after us.”

“So. We wait for them to find us? Blow our cover?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t.”

“Well it’s not like they can actually get us, anyway, and hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

“What? About what?”

“How that was for you?”

“No.”

*~*~*

There’s no easy answer, even when they know they have the amulet on their side. Yes, they’ve been raised knowing how to kill, and they have come close before but they never killed a hunter until now.

“This…” Sam says, “This is as deep as it’s ever gotten.”

“I know, Sam. We’ll think of something.” A pause. “They’re still the monsters.”

“I know.”

*~*~*

It does mean a new wave of hunting zealots comes their way. They do their best to just scare them off with the promise that they’re as deadly as they’ve always been, but there are a few more hunters’ funerals amid everyone they can scare off at a run, ready to spread the rumor that actually, the Winchesters don’t die.

And they don’t. So this is fine. This is fine.

*~*~*

“We don’t have anything to be scared of,” Dean says.

“Sure we do,” he replies. “Living, Dean. We don’t know how to live outside of this mess.”

*~*~*

They’re in the bathroom brushing their teeth.

“When I was little,” he tells Dean, “I used to make up little stories about the people whose money Dad stole or we stole. You know? I kinda just did anything, anything to just pass the goddamn time in a room.”

“I did that too.”

“Dean, how do we get out?”

“We don’t.”

*~*~*

“At least we were never hunters,” he says to Dean.

“Child abusers,” Dean growls.

“I guess they think they’re keeping people safe. But at what cost?”

“Cost of their own kids, their own families, their own lives.”

“I don’t know how they get up in the morning.”

“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but...not our problem, right?”

“At least something’s not.”

*~*~*

He’ll probably always be agoraphobic, but hey, the knowledge that he literally is protected from death helps a little. And why not get a home base? Eventually they do, and they tell no one where it is. It’s just theirs. And if this one falls, there will be another.

And maybe he becomes the case no one will come after, and maybe they burn hunters out in the woods.

And maybe one day Dean will take off the amulet, when they’re both tired. When they’re really, really ready.

They’re not even of an age they should be worried about it but anxiety makes you tired, it makes you wonder why you’re here.

He tries not to think that much about his present to Dean being something poisonous. It’s not. It’s kept them together. And together, alone, they pull each other slowly, so slowly out of their respective hells.

Sometimes hell is manmade. Sometimes hell is other people.

And they know life should be different, populated with more people, and maybe it would have been with some other turn of events.

Coming out of their shells isn’t easy but slowly the fear disappates with time and a lot of work. They can both wander into town and remember it is their town now. They can curl up in bed at night knowing it is theirs too, hard-won and off the motel circuit.

Even the house they have being bigger than a motel room was hard to deal with at first.

But they do. They do. They’ve fought bigger monsters than anxiety before, and their life is never as they imagined it but there is the smell of wood smoke and the comfort of the trees and, of course, forever, they have each other.

*~*~*

_Inside these walls there’s you._

_Everywhere, there’s you._

That’s what they see when they look into each other’s eyes.

Just as it’s always been.

_And you are everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly this was going to be longer, and there were ways I sped through it. Once I realized it was veering off to the side, so to speak, it started to give me some anxiety, and I sped up more. This could have easily gone on for another 10k-20k if I had followed canon events more closely, but I had eventually sidestepped too many to get it back on the rails. Soooo... basically, though, this is how I imagine it would be if Sam and Dean ever were able to truly face the horror that was their childhood, they would be forced to fall apart like regular humans.
> 
> I didn't exactly want the whole "amulet has powers" thing to turn sinister but I realized it had (well, from a certain angle) at some point and I left it that way.
> 
> Because it would be. It would be sort of traumatizing and so this also sort of becomes meta around the fact that they keep torturing the boys by bringing them back.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan, just... yeah. That's a thing. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this and that the sharp turns were not too sharp. I'm working on rushing less and getting a little better at slowing the plot down with each thing I write (lately anyway...never knew I would be a longer form writer really, but apparently it's getting easier.)
> 
> The end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking with this fic on what agoraphobia is really like (plus, you know, a lot of other stuff, which was actually more the plan than the agoraphobia bits to begin with). It's not really fun, though thankfully mine is better than it used to be by a lot, so no worries there.
> 
> A ton of people are reading this, which makes it one of my most popular stories by hits. If you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them because it's a bit surprising how this story has taken off!
> 
> If you also deal with this phobia or any other phobia I'm really open to any comments on that, because I feel a lot of solidarity with people who deal with any kind of phobia.
> 
> Anyway, so, The More You Know. I've heard and gathered this is an intense read for people. Thanks again!
> 
> ETA: Also I actually feel horrible about exposing people to this, but I also feel immensely better after I stopped freaking out about it, so I hope it's not too horrifying. TLDR the Winchester plight of constantly being trapped in places like this really REALLY spoke to me and I feel like if they were on cable we'd see them actually have mental problems from this stuff. But anyway!


End file.
